Re: Keller's View: Replace Lakewood Mayor with City Manager
Posted: Wed Mar 05, 2014 9:02 am
Let's take a look for a moment at the school/city governance analogy, with respect to the city manager debate.
A school board, one could argue, serves much the same function as a city council, but with the board president serving in sort of a semi-quasi-mayoral role. The real executive function in a school system is traditionally handled by an appointed, rather than an elected, superintendent, who works in concert with the school board.
Why does a school system not have an elected chief executive officer? Why, traditionally, have school superintendents not had to directly stand for election by the people?
The answer to this question, I believe, has traditionally had to do with an attempt to keep education and learning independent from political or governmental influence. Bring those two factors into play, and public education could very quickly turn into indoctrination. There are many people, for example, who believe very strongly in one educational philosophy or another. There are many people who feel that students should be put into uniforms and taught very specific things, while there are others who feel just as strongly about respecting the spirit of independent thought, dress, diversity, and independent inquiry. Public schools are continually working to strike a balance between all of that and more, but they do so independent of the pressures of civil governance in our country. I think that Americans have traditionally felt that educational debate and dialogue have needed their own arena for discussion, independent of government.
In any case, I think that removing the superintendent from having to run for election has traditionally been an effort to give greater independence for schools from excessive governmental or political influence.
Now that same line of thought comes into play with the city manager idea, but with one BIG difference. Now, we're talking about civil governance, and we need to ask ourselves one very fundamental question: Do we REALLY want our government processes to be removed one further step from the control of the people?
We know why schools do it. The question is- Why we should allow our government to do it?
Back to the banjo.
A school board, one could argue, serves much the same function as a city council, but with the board president serving in sort of a semi-quasi-mayoral role. The real executive function in a school system is traditionally handled by an appointed, rather than an elected, superintendent, who works in concert with the school board.
Why does a school system not have an elected chief executive officer? Why, traditionally, have school superintendents not had to directly stand for election by the people?
The answer to this question, I believe, has traditionally had to do with an attempt to keep education and learning independent from political or governmental influence. Bring those two factors into play, and public education could very quickly turn into indoctrination. There are many people, for example, who believe very strongly in one educational philosophy or another. There are many people who feel that students should be put into uniforms and taught very specific things, while there are others who feel just as strongly about respecting the spirit of independent thought, dress, diversity, and independent inquiry. Public schools are continually working to strike a balance between all of that and more, but they do so independent of the pressures of civil governance in our country. I think that Americans have traditionally felt that educational debate and dialogue have needed their own arena for discussion, independent of government.
In any case, I think that removing the superintendent from having to run for election has traditionally been an effort to give greater independence for schools from excessive governmental or political influence.
Now that same line of thought comes into play with the city manager idea, but with one BIG difference. Now, we're talking about civil governance, and we need to ask ourselves one very fundamental question: Do we REALLY want our government processes to be removed one further step from the control of the people?
We know why schools do it. The question is- Why we should allow our government to do it?
Back to the banjo.